Our Latest Hostage/ Guest Worker, Guest Worker!

I gotta practice that term.  Guest Worker!

It happened.  We burned through all the eligible family members that we could con, er, persuade to visit Alaska for a work-cation.  The last guy, Zach, Beret's wife's brother was a stretch to even be called a relative but we got two good years out of him.  He actually moved on here in Alaska to a paying job but we won't hold that against him!

So we had started pulling nets with this year's products ourselves and were writing to Char send back ache liniment.  She sent instead the web address of a great site, ********.  It actually charges people to be matched up with us, the host.  

It is such a great site that Larry and JR want to keep it a secret so that all of the other farmers and locals don't get to the best workers before we do. 

People write a profile touting their skills and we can select from those that want to travel to Alaska.  We wrote up a listing for the location, the housing conditions, and the work involved with pictures and interested parties can contact us as well.

I don't want to brag about our writing skills or maybe it was the photography but we woke up the next  morning to the ping ping ping of incoming mail.  We were stacking them up! 

 It seems everyone between the ages of 20 and 40 dreams of taking a gap year and working on an oyster farm in remote Alaska.  They want to live off the grid, work from 3 a.m.  until 11 p.m. in the cold rain with wet, heavy nets, and stay on a cot behind the cabin with no running water.

And I told 'em like it is.  You will be chopping wood, carrying water, eating whatever you catch, and playing second fiddle to Brick, our dog.  He sits on the boat seat!

They pay their own way here.  They agree to work around 25 hours a week on the farm plus help with the living chores and we provide the room and board.

We heard from a couple from Australia, Poland, a girl from Malaysia, a Frenchman, a Scotts, several Brits, a Hoosier, and one guy from New York City.

We wrote back and forth with several people.  We ruled out the New Yorker right away.  Too citified.  After all these exotic applicants who do you think we actually invited?  A good ol' southern Indiana farm boy!  

Yep!  Lee showed up one week ago.  Jerry spent the weekend boating him around and taking him fishing and out to pull in the shrimp pots.  On Monday we put him in rain gear and he was soon elbow deep in oyster poo.  He is catching on quick, is polite, likes my cooking, and is willing to do whatever.

This weekend we are having a three day rainy, windy gale.  He still seems to want to stay.  We are all ready talking about  promoting him to management and pulling in more workers.  Jerry can take a different one out fishing and adventuring each day.

********, what a deal.

STINK

I didn't think he could ever top it but JR never lets you down.

The bear brain paste, as all our teenaged readers remember fondly, was a very popular story.  From a distance.

This time I am chased off the back and the front and the sides of the float by a tote.

When I screw up my fortitude and peek in the said odoriferic tote what do I spy but putrefying octopus skin.  

Why would JR save octopus skin in a tote to rot and smell you ask when the great natural waste basket, the Pacific Ocean is a mere short toss overboard?  I DON"T KNOW why he or anyone would keep such a container around civilized people.

Ask him, he just might be looking for a new place to store his stuff.

A One Bear Day or Musings From the Front of the Skiff

You saw the new front door.  It has been four days of high winds, hail, rain, sleet, the whole gamut of nasty weather that keeps us pinned down in the cabin so we were ready to go out even though it was still a heavy mist.

We were boating around the outer islands looking for treasures which is what we often do after high winds.  Not everybody ties things down and not everything that is tied down stays.  Heck, we often find things that we lost after a blow.

So, there I am standing in the front of our skiff  perusing the shore lines and I am thinking of Dad Ryggs.  A long time ago I bought him a mug that he loved.  Printed on it was, " You can always tell a Norwegian, but you can't tell him much"! 

Ryggses are Norwegian.  But, I am thinking, you can always tell an Alaskan too, by the way they stand up in their boats.  Now granted, I haven't been around a lot of boaters before here except lake ski boats and you DON"T stand up in those.

Now local Alaskans ( I would say native but around here natives are Native) always stand up in their boats be it large fishing boats down to 12 footer skiffs with hand tillers.  I have seen them put extensions on the tillers so that they can steer while standing.

So, when we got our own boat I started practicing standing.  It is a little tricky what with the wind, waves, and a husband that isn't above jerking the steering wheel.

I learned that it is all in your stance.  You gotta stand wide with slightly bent knees, loose hips, and sway with the movement, kinda like riding a horse without the smell.

By now I am pretty good at standing and ready to move on to phase II.  It is about then that I realize that I don't know what phase II is.  Why am I standing here???  Am I looking for whale? rocks? rogue logs? the next island?  Am I to be ready to bale out at any second? 

 Why do Local Alaskans stand up in their boats?

Oh, and while we were out there on the water we saw our first bear of the year.  It was a really pretty, velvety black one, seemed rather big.